23 February 2009

As requested by A Fish Out of Water:
Early last week (maybe even two weeks ago, I don't remember), Ryan called me with an offer I couldn't refuse: a chance to hear James Carville (CNN news analyst and Uber politico) and his wife Mary Matalin (FOX News analyst and Uber politico) speak at the Biltmore this past Thursday. Of course I said yes. (Thanks for buying the tickets, Ryan!)
So I put on my nice new red dress shirt and my nice new red, white, and blue tie to match, and met Ryan at the Biltmore Fashion Park and we drove over to the Biltmore together. What I didn't know, and he didn't tell me, was that the event in question was the annual mega event for the Jewish Federation of Greater Phoenix. I think that Ryan and I may have actually been the only two non-Jews in the entire 1500-person population that went to the event. Kinda awkward.
Anyway, after some introductions by the Foundation's chairman, and a recap of the previous year's events and those in the year-to-come, Carville and Matalin took the stage. Now, mind you, I haven't really listened to either of them intently before considering I usually have ABC15 local news, C-SPAN, or MSNBC on when I want to watch TV news. I'd rather hit up the internet news to pick out just the stories I'm interested in. But they were really funny! Mary Matalin went first, and gave a rundown of how it was sometimes awkward, sometimes frustrating, but always awesome to be married to someone on the polar opposite political spectrum from herself. Except on Israel - that's apparently their one issue point of agreement: a strong and sovereign Israel. Mary also talked about President Obama's cabinet picks and briefly touched on the need for support for the president, even though we may not support the president's policies right now (especially this stimulus plan).
James Carville got up next and detailed some more of his thought's on Obama's first 30 days in office, made a few predictions about Israel, like that a peace treaty between Syria and Israel would be signed within 2 years. I don't know about that; I think it's a bit lofty to assume it, but hey, it's James Carville predicting it, so there must be some reasoning behind it. He discussed Bejamin Netanyahu in Israel and his formation of the Israeli government in the near future.
Then there was a brief Q&A session of questions submitted by people who had attended a different function a week prior to the Carville/Matalin event, mostly all about Israel and issues of importance to persons of Jewish faith. After the event, Ryan and I snagged some dinner (the event had a nice little dessert plate for guests) and I went home. It was a good time, although, had I known the event was for Jewish Foundation members, I probably would have been expecting all the questions on Israel instead of hoping to hear them talk more about the stimulus and the economy.
Sorry I took no pictures. My cell camera was useless in the big event hall, and my digital camera is currently not working.

1 comment:

To really enjoy the duo of Carville and Matalin, you must watch them when they come on Meet the Press together. I only remember them when Russert moderated, so I don't know how the new moderator affects their banter.

About Me

A former Lumberjack, I am now a Master's degree candidate in Information Resources and Library Science at the University of Arizona. I love both politics/government and baseball, and I hope very much to work in the field of political research someday, though at the moment, I'm not ruling anything out.